The Minister of Energy, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, says the power outages experienced two months ago were not due to a power crisis.
Rather, he attributed them to unforeseen factors such as rapid population growth and increased business setups.
According to him, a surge in demand, combined with an unexpected gas leak at Cen Power, resulted in an instant power loss of 340 megawatts.
This, coupled with maintenance at the Amandi Power Plant, led to power outages.
Dr. Prempeh argued that these incidents were unplanned, making it impossible for the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to announce a scheduled load-shedding programme.
In addition, he disclosed that Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) also requested emergency outages in some areas, exacerbating the situation.
Explaining further, he said areas like East Legon, initially planned as residential districts, have transformed into business hubs, overloading existing power lines and transformers.
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Manhyia reiterated that a myriad of factors caused power outages in different parts of the country at different times, and therefore ECG could not have announced a load-shedding programme since most incidents were unplanned.
Dr. Prempeh made these remarks in response to an urgent question from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP for South Dayi, Rockson-Nelson Etse Dafeamekpor, on behalf of the NDC MP for Tamale North, Alhassan S. Suhuyini, who was absent. Dafeamekpor asked if ECG had been undertaking load-shedding, and if not, why the power outages occurred.
Despite providing clarity, some Minority MPs pressed for more information on the current power situation, as the original question referred to the situation two months prior.
Dr. Prempeh maintained that ECG is not undertaking a scheduled load-shedding programme but would address any challenges that arise to ensure stable power distribution.
